Japanese guitar prodigy Yuto Miyazawa to perform in Hong Kong
Teen who had his first guitar lesson aged four and has played live with Ozzy Osbourne is set to rock the city
lives? Some people in Japan must think so, as 15-year-old guitarist Yuto Miyazawa was included in a local TV documentary's list of "100 Japanese citizens that will change the world".
An early passion for the electric guitar and heavy metal has certainly transformed his life. At the age of eight, Yuto earned an entry in the Guinness World Records as the "youngest professional guitar player" for having been paid for a significant number of television performances.
Child prodigies are not unusual in classical music, but the precocity of Yuto's talent is unusual in rock. He was less than two years old when he first became enamoured of the guitar, at first strumming toy instruments, and later a ukulele.
His father played, and was apparently quite capable, but was rapidly eclipsed by his son who was not yet four years old when he took his first guitar lesson. He decided to permanently hang up his own axe and encourage Yuto to develop his talent — this was already considerable — when Yuto reached the age of five, and his parents sent a home video of him to a local TV station.
In the pre-YouTube era Yuto might have remained a purely local phenomenon, but several video clips of his performances went viral — most notably a virtuoso rendition of a fiendishly difficult heavy metal guitar tour de force — Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads' Crazy Train.